 (13)
$5.99
|
Rob Neyer's Big Book of Baseball Legends: The Truth, the Lies, and Everything Else by Rob Neyer  (4)
$10.88
|
The Neyer/James Guide to Pitchers : An Historical Compendium of Pitching, Pitchers, and Pitches by Bill James  (18)
|
Baseball Between the Numbers by Baseball Prospectus Team of Experts (20)
$7.99
|
Whatever Happened to the Hall of Fame by Bill James (32)
$12.75
|
This item is not eligible for Amazon Prime, but millions of other items are. Join Amazon Prime today. Already a member? Sign in.
|
|||||||||
Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought
Editorial Reviews
Amazon.com
There are good teams, and there are great teams, and then there are teams that cross into legend where a case can be built for naming them the best team of all time. The Cubs of Tinker to Evers to Chance. The Yankees of Ruth and Gehrig, and later DiMaggio and Dickey, and, later still, Mantle and Maris and Ford, and still later, O'Neill and Jeter and Williams and Cone. The '29 A's, the '55 Dodgers, the '70 Orioles, the Big Red Machine. Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein identify 15 of these powerhouses, assess the overall stats and individual achievements of each, examine the durability of the numbers, and compare and contrast them relative to one another in an attempt to identify the one team that truly lived up to--and exceeded--its potential to stand alone.
There are good teams, and there are great teams, and then there are teams that cross into legend where a case can be built for naming them the best team of all time. The Cubs of Tinker to Evers to Chance. The Yankees of Ruth and Gehrig, and later DiMaggio and Dickey, and, later still, Mantle and Maris and Ford, and still later, O'Neill and Jeter and Williams and Cone. The '29 A's, the '55 Dodgers, the '70 Orioles, the Big Red Machine. Rob Neyer and Eddie Epstein identify 15 of these powerhouses, assess the overall stats and individual achievements of each, examine the durability of the numbers, and compare and contrast them relative to one another in an attempt to identify the one team that truly lived up to--and exceeded--its potential to stand alone.
It's a fascinating performance, as insightful as it is argumentative. (Neyer, a columnist for ESPN.com, and Epstein, a former baseball exec, don't always see eye to eye, and some of their disagreements are posted as dialogues.) Along the way, they debunk some myths (Mantle's 565-foot home run) and create new stats to test relative performance (one makes Johnny Bench the best catcher of all time--no problem there--with Mickey Cochrane second). Poignantly, they also project some "what-ifs," as in what if Lou Gehrig had stayed healthy for the '39 Yankees.
After parsing and reparsing team after team, Neyer and Epstein arrive at their conclusion, and while they pretty much disagree on places 2 through 15, they manage to present a unified front for No. 1. It's a team in pinstripes, but probably not the first--or second--to come to mind. Given the precision with which way they lay out their case, you'll have to work awfully hard to overturn their verdict. --Jeff Silverman
Davey Johnson
Few athletes are part of one baseball dynasty. I was fortunate enough to be part of two. This book captures the unique characteristics that make great teams great.
See all Editorial Reviews
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
Citations
(learn more)
3
books
cite this book:
- 1939: Baseball's Tipping Point by Talmage Boston in Back Matter
- Lou Gehrig: A Biography (Baseball's All-Time Greatest Hitters) by William C. Kashatus in Back Matter
- The Timeline History of Baseball by Don Jensen in Back Matter